Filter Feeding
by The-Aryan2
Summary: I took it down, but now it's back up. Enjoy.


Okay. Acid-trip time. Rated T for no-porns.  
If you've ever seen that one episode of spongebob, then you'll understand this..

* * *

Ace walked into Cyclonis' throne room one morning, and found the teen perched precariously on the back of the throne, sucking in air and making strange gasping 'ba-ba-ba-ba' noises.

The man dived at the girl and caught her, shaking her lightly, "Master? Are you okay?!" The girl wrenched away from him, glared at him and dismissed him with a dull shake of her hand. "Yes, I'm perfectly fine.. I was just filterfeeding.. How dare you interrupt me.."

"….Filterfeeding? I thought you were.. Uh.. Filterfeeding?" Nodding, Cyclonis climbed back up onto the back of her throne and settled. After a moment, her eyes grew wide and she began to gasp air into her lungs with a string of funny 'buh-buh-ba-ba-puhh-puhh-pp-pp-pp' noises.

Ace watched her, one eyebrow screwed up in confusion and worry, and the man wondered if the girl was on some kind of mind-addling drug, or if she had snapped. He knew ruling all of Cyclonia at the age of fourteen was stressful, but he never expected her to crack like this..

A couple minutes passed and she grinned and looked down at him, going quiet, and Ace waited, wondering what on earth she would do next. Smiling a little uncomfortably, he watched her as she gazed down at him, grinning like a Cheshire cat on acid.

"You've gotta try this, Ace." Yup, she was on drugs. "Try what, master?" "Try filterfeeding.. it's wonderful." He stepped forward nervously, as she began to demonstrate. He watched, helplessly confused.

"First, you sit down in a good place, hop up here in the throne and do it.." she pointed and looked at him expectantly, and the man reluctantly obeyed, beginning to wonder if that was some kind of strange test.

Ace sat down in the throne and pulled his knees up against his chest, and looked up at Cyclonis, who smiled down at him. "Now, copy me EXACTLY.."

She hunkered down and stared blankly off ahead, and after a moment her eyes widened and her pupils dilated all the way. Shiny-eyed and looking stoned, Cyclonis began to slowly draw in short broken gasps of "puh-puh-puh-puh-buhhhh-bahhhh-pp-pp-pp" then exhaled quickly and began again.

Ace began to shake his head- _no way in HELL was he gonna do that_.. But then curiosity and the desire to follow his master's wished took over, and he began to copy her.

He found he rather liked it, and, hugging his knees to his chest and perching a little off-kilter in the seat of Cyclonis' throne, Ace filterfed with the girl. "Bahhh-bah-bahh, puh-puh-puh-puh"

It wasn't long before a servant, and then a number of guards, Snipe, Ravess, and other talons came in, and all eventually succumbed to finding a nice place to sit and filterfeed. Most of them were in the large chamber which was Cyclonis' throne room, and they sat in a large cluster, filterfeeding beside their Master. Wastelands below and terra above, they were filterfeeding.

Filterfeeding had swept the nation of Cyclonia, and eventually the rest of Atmos began to wonder where all the talons were disappearing to.

The first person to go see what the hell was up was Aerrow. It had turned out that not only had Talons been disappearing, but nearly everyone who went into Cyclonia seemed to never come back. Stork said it was probably some demonic zombie-virus, and everyone was being eaten alive, thus no survivors to explain the goings-on.

Aerrow sort of wondered if the merb was right- well, halfway, anyways. He wanted to know where everyone was going.

So, armed to the teeth and expecting hell, Aerrow flew into Cyclonia on his skimmer and found-

**Noone.** It was dead empty, and the lone teen flew to the empire where Cyclonis resided, determined to find answers.

Prepared for the worst, the redhead burst through the large double-doors into the throne room, and stopped dead in his tracks, flabbergasted. Every missing head, be it talon or otherwise((the were raptors there, the murk raiders, tons of Sky nights, and Aerrow even spotted Starling not too far away..)) was sitting down, legs hugged tightly to their chest, and they were staring at him. They were ALL staring at him.

Aerrow felt his skin practically crawl off his bones and he began to step back, stumbling backwards to the doors. It looked like some weird alien-pod thing going on.. then, Cyclonis stood up, one hand extended in halt. "Aerrow, how nice of you to join us.. Care to filterfeed with the rest of Atmos?"

Blinking in confusion, his mouth hanging open as his eyes swept the room- so many people… What the hell were they doing, and what the fuck was filterfeeding?!

"Show him how to filterfeed, everyone.."

A chorus of_buahhhh-bahh-PUH-PUH-PUH-PUH-pp-pp-pp_'s filled the room and Aerrow fled for his life and sanity, back to his skimmer and back to the Condor, to his waiting friends.

…Explaining it all was difficult, at best. "They're all just kindof.. sitting there.. with their knees up against their chests, and they look high, and they just sit there and gasp. Noone looks sick or dead or evil, they're just.. _filterfeeding_, whatever that is.. Cyclonis wanted to me to try it, and I just ran.. I half expected them to chase after me and eat me."

"I tell you- it's some kind of alien-zombie-mind-control virus.. It's not going to be long before you succumb, Aerrow.. You were strong enough to fight it off at the heart of the beast, but it'll get you.." Stork waggled a finger at Aerrow, and the teen gulped.

Later in his room, Aerrow sat down on his bed, wondering--- he could just _try_ it, couldn't he? Just a few seconds wouldn't hurt- he could stop..

Fifteen minutes later, Aerrow burst out of his room with a goofy grin on his face. He grabbed Piper and shook her by the shoulders. "You've _gotta_ try this, Piper.. I know why they're all doing it!"

Eight months later, all of Atmos was in Cyclonia, hunkered down and _PUH-PUH-PUH_'s filled the air, followed by _bahhhhh_'s and _pp-pp-pp-pp_'s.

Everyone on Atmos was filterfeeding... _EVERYONE……_

Aerrow sat hunkered down betweed Piper and Ace, filterfeeding, when suddenly his_puh-puh-puh_ was cut off and he gagged, turning blue. So did everyone. Glassy eyes cleared and everyone looked around, confused..

Cyclonis looked heartbroken; and she tipped over, falling ontop of Ace who bit his bottom lip and looked surprisingly sad.

She said one thing, and the question and the emptiness behind it was echoed, "Where did it all go?"

Ravess stood up slowly, looking around and gave a meek 'bahhhh' but it was interrupted with a gag and she paled. "We.. It's all gone.. We filterfed it all away.."

One by one, people stood up, looking around in confusion, hurt, sadness, anger.. The filterfood was gone.. It was all gone. They'd eaten it all..

People filed out of Cyclonia and returned home, and life returned to normal, and eventually the war started back up.

……But noone ever forgot the eleven months of peace when all of Atmos filterfed.

* * *

Okay- I wrote this whole thing in about 10 minutes.

Just let it go.


End file.
